Life For a Land Cephalopod
by Bookworm Gal
Summary: Pretending to be human while living as a husband and father to a wonderful family isn't easy for an octopus. No one really knows how hard it is or how many problems arise. Land is an alien environment for a creature evolved for water and acting like a vertebrate while lacking a spine is hard. The challenges are vast, but he does it for them. He does it for his family.


**What am I even…? I don't even know what is going on in my head anymore…**

 **So I stumbled upon reference to the weirdest video game that's ever sparked my curiosity before. I didn't go and get the game since I'm not** _ **that**_ **crazy, but I did watch a couple of people play it on Youtube and comment on it as they went. The thing was funny and amusing to watch, but it also captured my inspiration. So yeah…**

 **The video game, "Octodad," and the sequel, "Octodad: Dadliest Catch," are based on the idea that an octopus ended up climbing on board a ship, put on some clothes, and pretended to be human. He met a woman, got married, moved into a nice suburb, and started raising kids (** _ **normal**_ **human kids instead of weird octopus hybrids).**

 **Mostly it focuses on his efforts to accomplish normal tasks like washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, pouring milk for his daughter, and going grocery shopping while maintaining the illusion that he's a human. This is pretty hard due to the lack of bones, extra limbs, and other octopus-related issues. His efforts tend to lead to plenty of chaos and destruction. Luckily, most of the people he encounters are perfectly happy to remain oblivious and he gets to keep stumbling through his day.**

 **The antagonist of the series is a chef who realizes he's an octopus, though he figured it out because he's paranoid about aquatic animals rather than because he's actually smart. The chef, Fujimoto, thinks sea creatures are out to get humanity and wants to turn the title character into sushi.**

 **It is a weird and hilarious premise, but it made me wonder about how exactly an octopus would adapt to living on land while pretending to be human. I mean, there would be some real problems for that if you really think about it too much. And then I did the research and it really got ingrained into my head.**

 **Some of the issues are pretty evident by the difficulties demonstrated by the unique control set up (you have to control each limb separately to walk or pick up things, which reflects the highly-complex nervous system they have that includes two-thirds of the neurons** **found in the nerve cords of its arms, which have limited functional autonomy** **). Others aren't really touched upon directly, but can be inferred by how he treats his family (he's a very loving father, which is something he wouldn't get to be in the wild since the adults die before they get a chance to raise the young). And yet others aren't really pointed out at all by the games, yet you can't help wondering about them (he's an octopus living on land, even though the species has gills).**

 **Tangling all these things up led to this forming in my brain. And since there aren't really any other "Octodad" stories on the site for me to read, I had to write this instead. And it had to be in first-person for some reason (which is weird since I haven't written like that since my "Darkwing Duck" trilogy). I guess that this story could be considered to be after the first game, but before the second one.**

 **I don't own "Octodad," the sequel, the characters, the biology of real octopuses (also known as octopi or octopodes, though all three plural forms can be used technically), the Youtube videos I watched to learn about this game, or apparently even my own free will. They all belong to other people/creatures.**

Life For a Land Cephalopod

With a minimal amount of knocking over the soap, toothbrushes, and mouthwash, I managed to turn on the sink. From there, I leaned forward so the water could run across my face briefly before moving the stream towards my gills and easing the burning dryness enough that I could breathe again. It didn't completely banish the discomfort and difficulties. And it still felt weird using fresh water instead of salt. I was born to have saltwater flowing through my gills. But it _did_ feel better. That was the important part.

I kept still for a little longer, letting the water wash over my poor skin and gills. Summer was always harder to deal with since the heat dried me out faster. Just a few minutes in the direct sunlight on the warmest days left me feeling itchy and gasping. Of course, it was also the time of year where sprinklers, kiddie pools, and trips to the beach offered sneaky opportunities to get wet. It was a balancing act.

Honesty, my entire life was a giant and complicated balancing act, both figuratively and literally. From the moment I decided to leave my proper place beneath the waves and see the world of humanity, I've been trying to combine what I am and who I want to be. What was meant to be a quick exploratory trip to learn more and practice my mimicry skills became a more permanent choice when I saw a red-haired stowaway on a fishing boat.

Living on land while pretending to be human wasn't easy for an octopus, but I decided to do it because I fell for Scarlet instantly that stormy night. Back then, I didn't know everything such a life would require. I knew it would involve prolonged time wearing a suit of clothing and trying to convince eight tentacles to behave like a pair of arms, legs, and a mustache. But that was just the beginning of the adaptations.

I bought a few books on human and octopus biology eventually, hoping it would make it easier to figure out the differences and perfect my charade. Humans directly control their limbs while I can only offer vague directions of what I want to do, demonstrating how the centralized brain compares to my more decentralized one. While it worked well when in the ocean with eight tentacles, I have problems keeping my movements coordinated and human-like. Humans always know exactly where their limbs are in relationship to their bodies, but I have to _see_ mine. Then there's the fact that they possess a stiff internal skeleton to give them structure, stability, and control while I don't. Any type of support for my body I needed was usually accomplished by my buoyancy in the water. Supporting all my weight on four tentacles stuffed into a pair of pants isn't exactly easy. Add all of these problems up and there are plenty of reasons why I have trouble controlling myself out of water. Even the easiest tasks are a challenge to perform, my efforts resulting in chaotic messes.

Breathing was another challenge I never really considered before I decided to live as a human. As long as my gills were kept moist, I could always manage the few times I crawled out of the ocean. It wasn't completely comfortable outside of saltwater, but I could handle it. So I didn't think about it too much until I moved out of the water permanently.

But when my gills slowly and gradually dried out, it would start to hurt and my breathing would become more difficult and labored. A biology designed to filter oxygen out of seawater didn't handle dry air quite as easily. If I put off remoistening my gills for too long, I would start suffocating. That wasn't fun. Not to mention it also would draw attention to me that I didn't need if I was going to keep my secret. But since my clumsy movement knocked things over anyway, spilling water on myself randomly doesn't even cause a comment anymore. And I talked Scarlet into buying a humidifier for the house, which helped a lot. But sometimes I still needed to dip my face into a sink or float in the tub in order to catch my breath.

Abrupt knocking at the bathroom door startled me into losing my balance, sending me slipping to the floor and tangling my limbs with the plunger in the corner. It was pure luck that I let go of the sink handle before I fell. My suction cups tended to have a firm grasp once attached and that can lead to problems when I don't release them in time. We'd already repaired the bathroom twice this month. I wasn't eager for third remodel.

"Honey, are you all right?" called Scarlet from the other side of the door. "You've been in there an awfully long time."

I gave her a quick and reassuring blub, causing my wife's pleasant voice to remind me to hurry up. A few seconds later, her footsteps moved away from the bathroom. She believed me. I relaxed a moment before clambering back into a vertical position and reaching for a towel, managing to grab it on my fourth try. I couldn't go out there dripping water or there would be questions. The trick was to be slightly moist rather than overly wet or dry enough to suffocate. Balance was key.

Talking was both tricky and easy. It didn't require the same level of coordination that most of my accomplishments needed. It had slightly different challenges. I practiced as much as possible when it came to speaking properly, but there was only so much I can do without vocal chords, a tongue, or lips. An octopus just wasn't designed to make the same sounds as a human mouth and vice versa. Even if octopuses were social enough to actually have names among each other, there is very little possibility that I would have a name that my wife could pronounce. And when I spoke, all my words came out as blubs. Thankfully my family and at least some of the people I dealt with managed to understand what I meant. Apparently they thought I just have a strange accent and were too polite to mention it.

I was actually fairly lucky that most people were too polite to comment on a lot of things. They didn't mention my odd skin tone, my lack of fingers, or my oddly-shaped head. If they noticed, they never said a word about it. Pretending to be a human was easier when they purposefully ignored anything strange. I could knock over everything in the room, fail to pick up an object a dozen times, and struggle to remain vertical, but they would intentionally not realize it wasn't normal for humans.

Except for Chef Fujimoto. He noticed everything. He knew I was an octopus from the very instant he saw me on that fishing boat. He could see right through my charade and he wasn't afraid to tell anyone who would listen. Of course, no one else ever paid him any attention when he started screaming about fish being out to get him. The poor man might be right about me, but he's also very paranoid and could benefit from some form of therapy. I did feel sorry for him. I truly did. And I would tell him that, but it was hard since he kept trying to attack me at every opportunity. His desire to expose my secret, his goal to turn me into calamari, and his lack of concern about my family getting caught in the crossfire was all very concerning and really provided an incentive to avoid him at all cost.

Somehow I managed to open the door on the first try and barely tripped over the table in the living room on the way out. Getting through the kitchen without the usual disasters, I stepped back out to the yard. Once again the summer heat hit me and I felt my fresh layer of moisture evaporating already.

"Hey, Dad, watch this. I've been practicing with my soccer ball all morning and I think I finally got this trick down."

Tommy ran up to me, kicking his soccer ball almost high enough to hit my head. He managed a brief look of panic as he realized the trajectory, indicating that he didn't mean to do that, but an awkward step on my part already brought me lower to the ground and the ball soared over me to bounce off the side of the house.

Addressing him with a mildly scolding blub, I gave him a stern look. The seven year old brown-haired boy frowned and dropped his gaze to the ground briefly.

"Sorry, Dad. I'll be more careful," he said apologetically. Then, brightening up, he asked, "But wasn't that cool? It looked like something Sports Johnson would do."

I patted his head while blubbing reassuringly about his skills only for a dark-haired five year old to nearly knock me to the ground with the force of her excited hug. I didn't mind, though. It would be nice for once to have a reasonable excuse to fall.

"Dad, I saw a butterfly that looked exactly like my hair clips," said Stacy. "Do you think they're long lost twins? Should we arrange a family reunion for them?"

A blubbing chuckle and a short explanatory blub later, Stacy canceled her planned reunion for the butterfly and her hair clip. Instead, I listened to her and her brother discuss the possibility of unicorn hockey games. I moved myself to the picnic table, rearranging my limbs a few times until I vaguely looked like I was sitting. One tentacle refused to cooperate, but having one "arm" wrapped around my body wasn't too bad. Once I was in place, I turned my attention to watching Tommy and Stacy play.

Stacy looked exactly like her mother, only smaller and without her red hair. Tommy looked less like Scarlet, though I could see some similarities around the eyes. Neither of them looked anything like me, but that was to be expected. They were completely and utterly human.

I remember talking to Scarlet about the topic of children shortly before I proposed to her. She mentioned that she wanted them, that she wanted to be a mother someday. I already knew by that point that I loved her and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life on land with her. But I also knew that we couldn't have offspring together. No matter how much I pretended otherwise, I wasn't the same species as her.

With very apologetic blubs, I explained to Scarlet that I couldn't have children and that it would cause me a lot of problems to even try. Of course, this was back before I bought my books on human biology and I was thinking about it mostly in octopus terms. So while I was imagining ripping off a limb and eventually suffering mutual deaths, she was thinking of completely different issues.

But Scarlet was a very sweet, very wonderful, very understanding woman. She pointed out there were other options if we ever wanted a family, like adoption. That was a completely novel concept to me at the time. It captured my attention. I'd never imagined having children since I'd always assumed that I would be dead before I would get to see them. But now that I started entertaining the idea of seeing children grow up and actually _raising_ them… I realized I wanted that. She wanted children and so did I.

We researched the different possibilities both before and after the wedding, Scarlet being as thorough as she would when following a lead in a story for the newspaper. In the end, we chose to go for artificial insemination from an anonymous donor. Part of me still worried what would happen to her throughout the entire pregnancy and I couldn't relax until both she and our infant son were home from the hospital, Scarlet showing no signs of spontaneously dying. But the moment I took my first look at little Tommy, everything seemed right. He was perfect and so was the entire world. And it somehow improved even more a couple of years later with Stacy.

It was so amazing watching them grow and learn. They started out so small and fragile that I was afraid I'd break them. Considering how much damage I do with normal tasks, it was a legitimate concern. But then they started crawling and then walking, going from wobbly movements that matched my attempts to something more coordinated. They started babbling and then talking. Their personalities developed. They became little people with likes, dislikes, interests, and questions about the world. It was so strange and fascinating. And I wouldn't get to witness such miraculous changes if I had octopus children. I would have missed out on something wonderful.

"Honey," called Scarlet, stepping outside. "Kids. I made some lemonade."

With a blub of enthusiasm and ignoring the itching burn as my gills started growing uncomfortably dry again, I reached towards the tray with the pitcher and glasses that my wife carried. It took all my concentration to avoid knocking over the pitcher, but I did eventually snag a glass on my sixth attempt. The fact I spilled half my lemonade before I got it near my face did little to discourage me.

Living on land while pretending to be human wasn't easy for a cephalopod like me. Gills, too many limbs, no bones, and trouble speaking comprehensively were all reasons why it shouldn't work. I'm not meant to live like this for years. Even if I managed to look vaguely human, there were also the responsibilities and obligations of being a husband and father. Taking care of my family wasn't simple (though some of my attempts to provide income by recovering treasures sunk on the bottom of the ocean were fairly straightforward and convenient), but I managed to keep my life balanced so far.

It wasn't always easy living this life while keeping my secret, but it was the only reason I gained my family in the first place. Octopuses have three hearts and I love Scarlet, Tommy, and Stacy with them completely. If the choice was the normal life of an octopus or the three humans I love most, I'd rather drape myself at the picnic table, gills burning as the summer heat dry them out, trying to hold my glass of lemonade the right way up, and spend time in the backyard with them.

This was something I couldn't have anywhere else. If all my challenges and discomfort with living out of the ocean was the price, then I would gladly pay it a thousand times over to have my family with me. It was worth it. I wouldn't trade my family for anything in the world.

 **Yeah, that turned out to be an interesting one-shot. Just don't hold your breath for another story in this fandom. Or another chapter. This is it. But in case you were interested, here's some of the research I gathered for this short story.**

 **Unlike most other cephalopods, the majority of octopuses have almost entirely soft bodies with no internal skeleton. They have neither a protective outer shell like the nautilus, nor any vestige of an internal shell or bones, like cuttlefish or squid. The beak, similar in shape to a parrot's beak, and made of chitin, is the only hard part of their bodies.**

 **Octopuses have three hearts. Two branchial hearts pump blood through each of the two gills, while the third is a systemic heart that pumps blood through the body. Octopus blood contains the copper-rich protein hemocyanin for transporting oxygen. Although less efficient under normal conditions than the iron-rich hemoglobin of vertebrates, in cold conditions with low oxygen pressure, hemocyanin oxygen transportation is more efficient than hemoglobin oxygen transportation. The hemocyanin is dissolved in the plasma instead of being carried within red blood cells, and gives the blood a bluish color. The octopus draws water into its mantle cavity, where it passes through its gills. As molluscs, their gills are finely divided and vascularized outgrowths of either the outer or the inner body surface.**

 **Octopuses also have an excellent sense of touch. An octopus's suction cups are equipped with chemoreceptors so the octopus can taste what it is touching. The arms contain tension sensors so the octopus knows whether its arms are stretched out. However, it has a very poor proprioceptive sense. The tension receptors are not sufficient for the brain to determine the position of the octopus's body or arms. The neurological autonomy of the arms means the octopus has great difficulty learning about the detailed effects of its motions. The brain may issue a high-level command to the arms, but the nerve cords in the arms execute the details. There is no neurological path for the brain to receive proprioceptive feedback about just how its command was executed by the arms; the only way it knows just what motions were made is by observing the arms visually.**

 **Octopuses are highly intelligent, possibly more so than any other order of invertebrates. The exact extent of their intelligence and learning capability is much debated among biologists, but maze and problem-solving experiments have shown evidence of a memory system that can store both short- and long-term memory. An octopus has a highly complex nervous system, only part of which is localized in its brain. Two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are found in the nerve cords of its arms, which have limited functional autonomy. Octopus arms show a variety of complex reflex actions that persist even when they have no input from the brain. Unlike vertebrates, the complex motor skills of octopuses are not organized in their brain using an internal somatotopic map of its body, instead using a nonsomatotopic system unique to large-brained invertebrates. Despite this delegation of control, octopus arms do not become tangled or stuck to each other because the suction cups have chemical sensors that recognize octopus skin and prevent self-attachment.**

 **They have been witnessed to use tools. Octopuses often break out of their aquariums and sometimes into others in search of food. They have even boarded fishing boats and opened holds to eat crabs.**

 **When octopuses reproduce, the male uses a specialized arm called a hectocotylus to transfer spermatophores (packets of sperm) from the terminal organ of the reproductive tract into the female's mantle cavity. The hectocotylus in benthic octopuses is usually the third right arm. Depending on the species, the male may use it merely as a conduit to the female, or he may wrench it off and present it to the female.** **In some species, the female octopus can keep the sperm alive inside her for weeks until her eggs are mature. However, reproduction is a cause of death: males can live for only a few months after mating, and females die shortly after their eggs hatch. They neglect to eat during the (roughly) one-month period spent taking care of their unhatched eggs, eventually dying of starvation.**

 **...Yeah, I probably bored half of you to sleep. But I tried to take all of this into consideration when imagining the challenges of being Octodad.**


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